


And yet we stay gods

by olivemartini



Series: Infinity War Saga [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, I fixed it, Loki's not dead guys, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-18 19:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15493497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: He isn't dead, but he's dying.There are perks to being the god of mischief, and one of them is that you can shield yourself, separate yourself, wrap illusions around your being until you are no longer sure where you end and the magic begins.  Like, a bit of you is standing on that ship with the wreckage of what used to be your home and staring at your brother, leaving him with the words of the sun will shine on us again even though you are not so sure, and the rest of you is crash landing down to midgard, the force of the impact so strong that you are buried underneath a mountain of sand, thrown back in time for a full six months before it happened.





	And yet we stay gods

He isn't dead, but he's dying.

There are perks to being the god of mischief, and one of them is that you can shield yourself, separate yourself, wrap illusions around your being until you are no longer sure where you end and the magic begins.  Like, a bit of you is standing on that ship with the wreckage of what used to be your home and staring at your brother, leaving him with the words of  _the sun will shine on us again_ even though you are not so sure, and the rest of you is crash landing down to midgard, the force of the impact so strong that you are buried underneath a mountain of sand, thrown back in time for a full six months before it happened.  

(There are people that would call it talent, but Loki knows better.  This is a cowards trick.  This is someone who is afraid of death and the great dark expanse of nothing that might be waiting there, or worse, the judgement that will be handed down to him.  He had believed that he was damned before, but now he is certain.  Eternity is a long time to spend in chains.)

It takes him days to pull himself out of the ground, inch by inch, one painful stretch of the arm at a time.  When he finally breaks through, he cannot even move, just rolls onto his back and chokes out a sound that might have been a laugh, feeling the waves lap at his ankles.  

He stares at the stars, too, tracking the one dot of light that does not belong in the modern sky, taking comfort in knowing that at least for now, his brother is safe.

 

 

His life is like a ticking time bomb.

The thing about separating your existence is that it can only work as long as the two halves are around to make a whole.  If something were to happen to the one ( _like, say, some titan crushes you underneath the might of his own idealism_ ) the other would disappear without a trace, without warning, like it had never been there at all.  And all Loki can do is wait until the two time lines meet, until the moment that decides if he will live or die, without having any ability to sway the outcome.

It is an incredibly vulnerable existence.

 

 

 Eventually, he has to stand, move on, move forward.  He morphs his clothes to meet the mortal fashion, mends his breaks without bothering to mask the pain and lets each one force him down to his knees as the nausea racks through his body, weaves currency out of the air and hopes that he picked the right nationality.

There is a rental stand.  Loki does not know what it is for or where, but he hopes it is someplace that can either give him shelter or allow him the means to seek it out.  Not that he looks trustworthy enough to be allowed to rent everything.  But he does have money.   Sometimes, most of the time, that's all that matters.

"Hello."  There is the fear that he is going to be noticed, thrumming in his chest like the beating wings of a sparrow, frantic.  Can people forget so easily?  Can they forgive that readily?  Beyond everything else, all the destruction that he caused and the pain he brought down upon them, he was the one who opened the door.  He was the one that let them see behind the curtain to all the monsters this world can hold, who showed them how many things in this life they could not control.  Surely they would recognize him the moment that they laid eyes on him.  Loki wouldn't even have the strength to fight back, should they choose to attack him.  Doesn't think he would even if he could.  "I'd like to rent one."

Or maybe not.  The man behind the counter does not even look up.  "Which one?"

Loki scans the room behind him and all he sees are keys.   _For the Love of Odin,_ he thinks, and the words do not send the spike of pain that he is expecting.   _Don't let this be a jet ski stand._

He has to lean on the counter for support.  "The biggest one you've got."

It peaks interest, at least.  A raised eyebrow, the setting aside of the trashy gossip magazine he was reading.  He can see his brother's face painted across the front.  "You afford that?"

"Yes."  He can afford anything.  "I believe I can."

(It's a house, thank god, with rickety steps leading up to a seaweed and sand strewn front porch and with a musty smell on the inside, water damage evident in the warped floorboards and a kitchen sink that he cannot seem to get to stop leaking, but it isn't the sand.  It isn't that ghastly planet with all it's bright colors and bloodshed.  It's no where near Thanos.   _This,_ he thinks, sinking down onto the floor without bothering to search for a bed because it is all the farther he can force himself to move,  _is going to have to do._ )

 

 

 

 "Hey."  The voice comes from the porch beside his, and even though Loki wants to pretend that he has not heard, he has already turned toward it.  "Dude."

It's just a girl.  Only a girl, he tells himself, someone mortal, someone eons younger than you who has no idea who you are.  Be polite.  Make a friend.  These five months will be a waste if you spend it all moping in a grimy kitchen.

"Yes?"  He moves down the steps and she doesn't.  Stranger danger.  Must live alone.  Loki wonders how she found herself here, on purpose or on accident.  "I don't believe we've met."

"No, we haven't."  Her mouth twitches up in what might be a smile but she still takes a step backward, back to the safety of a porch light and locked doors.  "I just wanted to tell you that it was trash night.  Didn't think those idiots at the rental would have bothered."

It throws him.  "What?"

"Trash night?"  She's definitely trying not to laugh now.  "When you sit out your trash cans so they can come and pick it up?"  She squints over at him in the darkness.  "Are you alright?"

"Yes."  No.  He hadn't ever had to worry about these things, the mundane things.  He was a prince.  There were people to clean for him, to cook for him, care for him, fight for him if need be. Even when he was a prisoner, he was given any comfort he could ask for, except to be free of his cage.  "Perfectly fine."

"Okay.  Sorry."  Her words are falling from her now, like they had been stacked up on her tongue and now were rushing free.  "I just thought.  Thought I'd help."

For a moment, Loki wonders if she knows how pathetic he is.  If she has noticed how he sits on top of the kitchen counter and moves the faucet around in hopes that he might make the infernal dripping stop.  That he spends his nights wading out into the ocean and letting the waves batter at his legs and staring at the sky, praying to anyone he can think of, to his brother, to his father, his mother, to any God that he had ever been told about whether he believed or not, because he so desperately does not want to die before he has a chance at reaching redemption.  If she has seen the endless round of food that comes delivered to his door because he cannot figure out how to work the oven, the Chinese food at three in the morning and the pizza and the Mexican food, if she intuits, somehow, that the containers have been piling up on his counter because he had no idea what to do with them and no strength to make them vanish.  

"No, you did."  He almost leaves her in peace.  But it's been so long since he talked to someone.  "Could you help me with one more thing?  Could I borrow a bag?  A trash bag?"  It was so obvious that he was faking this whole thing, stumbling through the conversation.  Loki gives an apologetic shrug.  "It's just that I didn't plan on being here."

"No.  We never do."  She does not look like she is going to run away anymore, at the very least.  "Wait here." 

 

 

 

He learns things from her.

Firstly, that the clothes that you wear in New York are not the ones you wear in middle of nowhere North Carolina.  Secondly, that this middle of no where place did not used to be so middle of no where, but then the tourists stopped coming and the money dried up but all the people stayed, trapped by their own complacency, and that's why she was able to afford a house right on the shoreline of the beach, so close that she could use the waves to lull herself to sleep tonight.  And also that she was running.

"I didn't mean to come here."  He had not meant to talk to her again.  She had interrupted him while he was praying and he pretended that he was just looking at the stars, and now she was informing him of the names of the constellations.  She learned them during an astronomy class at college, the only science class she ever got an A in.  He already knows all of them, much better than this girl, who butchers their names, cuts them up with her teeth.  "I was running.  And then I was out of gas.   And the beach seemed a pretty nice place to be."

"How long have you been here?"  Loki's invested now.  He hadn't wanted to be, but he has been ever since she came out on the porch to tell him he was trash night and their fingers brushed over the bag.  He'd been looking out for her, in some small way, pretending that they had given him the wrong order and taking over an extra taco to her, helping her up the front steps when she seems too weak to do it on her own and not even being offended when she bats him away at the door, chasing down a t-shirt that had been ripped off her clothesline by the wind.  

"Longer than I wanted to be."

"I'm sorry."  The apology came out too heart felt, and he scrambled to correct it.  "I'm sorry,"  He says again.  "I don't even know your name."

"Haven."  She smiled at him, like she knew it was strange and didn't mind if he laughed.  "You?"

_Me, what?  She's got so many questions.  And this is the one I don't want to answer._

"Loki."  He had thought about lying, but hell, he was dying.  Maybe he should do his best not to accumulate anymore sins.  He holds his breath, but there is no flicker of recognition on her face.

 

 

Sometimes, he dreams.

If this was home, back at Asgard, he would be able to wander off to the garden and rip flowers up by the roots, breath in the heady scent and let it calm him.  It was the only thing that would allow him to slip into a sleep does not end with him waking in screams.

( _There are just so many memories.  So many battles, fought with his brother and against him.  So many people screaming his name, cheering for him, yelling for his destruction.  So many eyes that turn towards him as he moves to claim a throne that was never his to own, a million hands that reach out, a million hands that have touched him, a million people that have known his name and all of them will turn to dust.  What do they call you, then, when no one knows your name?  Are you really a god if there is no one left to worship you?_ )

Here, though, there is nothing.  There is just this bed with the too thin mattress, and the wall with the marks of other people who have lived there.   When he wakes, he does not try to fall asleep, just puts his hand on his stomach so he can feel the rise and fall of his too thin chest, proof that he is still alive, even with all the people that have died, even with everyone that has tried to kill him.

It is not much of a comfort.

There are only five months left.

 

 

 

"You look funny, you know."  She was tipsy, but that was the wrong word.  The words he wanted did not belong in Midgard, so he had to think in other terms- he thinks that she is looser, like she can breathe, that she had been suffocating and has just now managed to remember what its like to take her fill of air.  "Like I should remember you."

"We've never met before."  Not a lie.  He is careful about his lies.  Is it still wrong, when you tell the truth, if the intent behind the words is still to hide?

"No.  No, I didn't think so.  It's not that kind of memory."  She squints over at him.  Loki had almost slammed the door in her face when she came over earlier that night, pounding on the door and demanding that he go outside for once, dragging him down the shoreline to the Mexican place he keeps ordering food from and never going to.  But he hadn't, and now they were here, sitting at the bar and eating their fill of tacos while people yelled at the television.  It was loud enough that she was leaning in to make sure that he could hear her, but she needn't have bothered.  He was a god.  Normal rules do not apply.  "Were you an actor?  You look like an actor."

Sort of.  Once.  But not the way she means.  "No."  He laughs at her and she laughs back for the sake of it, and without meaning to he reaches out to her, tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.  She freezes under his touch and does not exhale again until his hand is safely back down on the counter.   "Not an actor."

"Are you famous?  Are you on the run from the law?"   Yes.  Not at the moment.  "What are you doing here, anyways?"

She doesn't let him answer.  Haven's an angry thing, so filled up with it that it boils over sometimes.  But most of the time she's just kind.  It makes him feel bad for her.  This life is the worst for the kind people- they cannot look away from the pain of others and they bleed from it, hold out their arms and let the world cut them open.  They are all blister and no callous.

"I came here to be a writer."  She scrunches her nose up and steals a piece of shrimp off his plate.  "No.  I  _was_ a writer.  Now I'm a waitress."

"Why did you come here?"

"Because I was running away."  Her eyes were so, so sad.  Loki wants to tell her that he knows what it feel like to be so sad that it pours out of you.  To tell her that he knew people with sad eyes- Valkeyrie with her whiskey kissed lips, Bruce with the hands that never stop shaking, his brother with all his invisible scars bending underneath the weight of their father's throne.  "Because people were mean."

She looks sad, but then she blinks and she is laughing again.  Loki does not know what to say so he reaches out to her again ( _he's trying to comfort her.  trying to be better, remember?_ ) and this time she does not flinch away.

"Maybe we knew each other from another life."  She smiles at him, brilliantly, and spills salt out of the shaker to write her name in it.  Loki makes a note to vanish it before they leave.  "Maybe we knew each other from a dream."

Loki just stares.  This was a lie, but it was better than having to tell the girl from next door who took you out for margaritas and shared her trash bags that she only knew you because you were once intent on conquering the world.

(Though he still has four and a half months.  That's enough time to conquer.  Go out with a bang, and all that.  At least keep from being forgotten.  But no, that wouldn't work, and besides, he doesn't want to be that person anymore.)

(And also Tony Stark is still here.  There's no room for attack when he is guarding the border.)

Haven is still waiting for him to answer.  "You must tell great stories,"  He says, and she smiles.

 

 

Somewhere, he is stretched out on a couch eating grapes, building monuments to his own shadow while watching the world around him burn.

Somewhere, his brother is healing his broken heart by roaming the realms in search of something that has already been found by a Titan draped in delusion.  Somewhere, he is fighting for things that have not happened yet.  Somewhere, he is preparing himself for a burden without knowing how much weight he would have to carry.

Somewhere, his father is breaking out of the fog of a spell that Loki had cast, grieving anew for the wife he had lost.  Loki had taken away the memory of her, stolen his pain and called it compassion.  Somewhere, his father is alive and choosing to let his sons face the world alone.

Loki does not go to any of them.

 

 

"God."  He goes to the diner where she had mentioned she worked just to see if it was the truth, and finds her in a pink skirt and fluffy white apron, a pencil stuck through her pony tail.  She is laughing but she is also embarrassed, and Loki feels himself slipping into someone who is not a conqueror and not a prince and who is maybe just trying to spend his last months alive being happy.  "Jesus, go home, won't you?"

He doesn't.  He orders a strawberry milkshake because the colors match her skirt and drinks it without tasting it, tracking her motions around the room when she cannot see him, though it must have been impossible for her not to feel the burn of his gaze.  When he leaves a ten minutes until closing, just early enough that he can be sure to beat her home, he gives her a fifty dollar tip.

He finds it crumpled up in the mailbox the next day.

There are only four months left.

 

 

 

"What are you afraid of?"  She had just made him come over to kill a spider.  Loki didn't like them either but did not know how to tell her that, so he just used a bit of his magic to get rid of it.  Even that effort makes him feel weak at the knees.  

He thinks about his sister, who he just met.  He thinks of the Hulk.  He thinks about the grandmeaster and his hands, those moods that even Loki could not track and the constant struggle to stay in his favor.  He thinks of his brother and the lightning, of Tony Stark and his metal armor, of standing on a ship and watching the end come.

He goes with honest.  Too honest.  Too somber.  "Dying."

Her expression shutters shut.  She does not do heavy topics, or heavy emotions.  She would want him to go home now.  "Aren't we all."

 

 

He was foolish, to think that he could rule these people.

They do not bend.  They would smash themselves to pieces and rip out their own hearts before they let themselves be controlled.  Humanity is a wild, unbridled thing, and it beats with a heart that Loki never could have tamed.

 _I'm sorry,_ he wants to scream at the woman who is bent over her shopping cart filled with threadbare blankets.  She clutches at it with wrinkled hands and clawed fingers when he approaches, and does not thank him when he stuffs money into her hand, but that's good.  He does not deserve it.

 _I did not know the lives that I was taking,_ he says, when he is walking the beach and a girl no older than three crashes into his knees, falling back to the sand and staring at him like he is a giant, leaving the mother to simultaneously apologize and check if she is alright.

 _I never would have come here if I knew,_ he thinks, when he finally makes it a nightly thing to go to that bar.  He snaps at drunks when they get too loud and banters with the fisherman who should have retired ages ago and always twists to the door when the bell chimes, hoping that it is her.

 _You forget what it is too live, when you grow as old as I have,_ and this is directed when he walks home with her and their hands keep brushing and he thinks that it is her way of telling him that it is okay, that this is his for the taking if he would just take the leap, but Loki does not have it in him to ruin one more thing.

_It would have been better if I stayed on the ship._

 

 

 

Three months.

It is both an eternity and an instant at the same time.

 

 

 

They're sharing a hammock, legs twisted, arms fighting for space.  It's a bittersweet kind of happiness.

"I swear to God, Loki, if you have laugh I'll stab you."  She is watching his face as he reads.  "Is it terrible?  It's terrible, isn't it?"

She was letting him read the things he wrote, the words spiraling out on the page in purple glitter ink.  He had to ask ten times.

"It's not terrible."  It isn't.  He's read a lot, so he knows when things are good.  And this is good, even when she tries too hard and her sentences spread too thin.  It's raw, unflinching, honest.  "I like it."

"Do you?"  She doesn't trust him.  She's smarter than most.  "I don't."

"You should."  Haven tries to tug the notebook back and he holds on.  "I would read anything you wrote."

"You're only saying that because you like me."  She was pouting.  "Not because it's good."

"No."  He leans in closer to her, until he is practically hovering on top of her. "Why can't it be both?"

This time, she does not smile.

 

 

 

"I ran away from my boyfriend.  Not because he was all that bad.  But-,"  She huffs out a breath and it seems to spread over the entire ocean.  "But I loved him, and he loved me, and one day I woke up and looked down at him sleeping beside me, and thought- I thought God, Haven, what the fuck are you doing with someone like him.  He was just so ordinary.  I didn't want ordinary."

Haven has her jaw titled up, one knee hugged tight to the chest.  She has claimed the entire porch swing on her own and Loki was left standing.   "And I guess I could have just moved out.  Went across town, got a hair cut, bought new clothes.  But I couldn't shake the feeling of being stuck.  So I ran."

Being stuck was something he could sympathize with.  Of thinking that you were great and then finding out that you weren't.

"And here I am.  Ordinary."

 _No,_ he was about to say, but she had already left him outside.

 

 

 

Loki is staring to learn what it is like to live.

He has actual friends now.  He counts his blessing that he landed in a spot like this, where people are so disconnected from the rest of the world that they do not notice when the man who led an alien invasion lands in their midst.  It's a blissful kind of ignorance, one that allows him to have a running tab at the bar and go to the movies and carry groceries to the car for elderly women.

He's learned how to cook, and how to clean, even though he mostly doesn't bother unless Haven is expecting him to.  Loki went to the library and checked out a bunch of cookbooks on meals for two, and now whenever she comes back from her shift he has dinner laid out on the porch for the both of them.  Haven eats it like she knows that she is the only reason that he is bothering, but does not want him to stop.

He has gone fishing.  And tried to surf.  He's swum far enough out into the ocean that he thought he was going to get lost on the way back.  He's climbed a mountain, and ate berries right off the bush, and made home made ice cream while Haven barked orders at him.  He has done a lot of things that do not seem worth the trouble but it is still not enough.

 

 

"You could kiss me, you know."  Her comment knocks him off balance.  "I know you want to."  When he just stares, she stares back.  "At least I think you do."

Loki thinks of saying no, but that would probably hurt her, and anyways, he is not that much of a coward.  "I do."

"Then why aren't you?"

"Maybe I'm not a good guy.  Maybe I'm not the hero."  He pushes off the counter top and crosses the room to her, cages her in.  "Maybe I'm the bad guy.  Maybe I'm the monster that everyone runs from."

"Maybe I don't care."  She does not shrink away from him.  Does not even tear her eyes away, and it is him who breaks first, eyes skittering to stare out the window behind her head.  "Did you ever think of that?"

"Maybe you should."

"Maybe you shouldn't make the rules for other people."  She tilts her head up and it is a challenge.  "You ever think about that?"

Loki stares at her.  He considers kissing her.  But then he walks away.

 

 

 

She avoids him for days after that, long enough that three months turn into two and he is running out of time.

There is phantom pain hiding right behind his ribs.  There's a pounding in his head, constant, a drum beat at his temples, and no medication he buys ever works because it is not strong enough.  He does not eat because then the sickness rolls over him in waves.  All he can do is sleep, and sometimes drag his heavy limbs down to the sea so he could feel the spray of the salt on his face.  

 _Your birthright was to die,_ he hears, just as loud as it had been the time his father screamed at him, and Loki shudders on the blankets, too hot and too cold all at once, running from memories and running from dreams and just wanting to sleep, but all he sees is his father's face and all he hears is his words.  It brings a taste like acid to his mouth, and none of the wine he drinks can wash it away.

 _I'm dying now, old man,_ he thinks, and rolls too far, misjudging the distance between the bed and the wall and crashing to the floor without the strength to pull himself back up.   _But so are you._

He takes no comfort in the thought.

 

 

 

"Jesus."  He hears her voice ring out over the sound of the wind and the storm, but unlike that first night, Loki does not turn to her.  "Christ, Loki, get back inside!"

 _How do you not know who I am?_ Thor had told him that this was a digital age, that everything you ever wanted to know was at the click of a button.   _Didn't you google me?  I thought everyone had google._

"What are you doing?"  She sounds worried, but Loki just wades out further into the waves, chasing the lightning, chasing the storm.  The crackle and the static of it remind him of his brother, remind him of home.  "You're going to get yourself killed!"

He turns back to reassure her -to say something like  _darling, I'm already dying_ \- but then a wave comes out of no where and knocks him out off his feet, the rush of the water keeping him under even when he tries to find the light again, pounding him, burying him back into the sand, and he cannot raise himself back to the air so he just draws in a breath.  He welcomes the burn but finds that he is just as afraid of dying as he had been on that ship but this time there is no escape, and just when he thinks that this is how it ends for him, just when the spasm starts, a hand grabs him by the arm and pulls him back to the shore.

They both collapse on the sand.  Loki does not move, just rolls back to watch the lightning strike, listening to her rage and scream and cry beside him, saying how stupid it was, how she didn't want to die for him, how she didn't want him to die, did he want to die, because only people who want to die or who are idiots walk into water like that and he never struck her as an idiot.

He can only cough.  Cough until the water is gone and the air still refuses to come, cough until the blood shines on his lips and drips down between his teeth.  He can feel it in his throat, warm and sickly sweet.  It makes him want to vomit.  It makes him want to cry.

"Jesus."  She kneels down on the sand in front of him and grabs him by the neck, kisses him, all taking even though he is not giving, like she could wear him down and bring him back to life all at once.  "What the hell was that?"

_That was me dying.  That was the end.  That was the answer to the question I have been asking for the past three and a half months.  This is me, running out of time, and you trying to shove the sand back in the hourglass._

When he doesn't answer, Haven just kisses him again, and Loki wonders if she can taste the blood.

 

 

 

"Quit complaining."  She shoves the bowl of soup at him and it burns his hands when he tries to hold it. She has to help him lift it to his lips.  Loki wonders if there had ever been a god to be so weak.  "It's only a cold."

That's the line that Haven has been repeating for the past three days, but she doesn't sound so sure.  Loki takes it as a good sign that she isn't as blindly terrified as she had been the first night, when she dragged him in from the surf and forced him into the shower and under a pile of warm blankets, but she still did not let him out of her sight for long, constantly swinging by his spot on the couch to place the back of her hand against his forehead or dump another blanket onto his lap.

She seems to have taken it upon herself to play nurse.  She makes him bowls of soup, and keeps a revolving cycle of blankets in the dryer so he can always have warm ones, and she puts on a DVD of old crime shows that he does not like to watch.  He swallows the medicine she gives him and pretends not to notice that they are not helping, drinks the bottles of Gatorade that she keeps forcing upon him.  He does it not because he thinks that it will make a difference but because he knows she is only trying to help, even giving up her much needed shifts at the diner to stay with him.

And it does help.  Eventually.  The fever breaks.  The shaking stops.  He keeps down one bowl of soup, and then two, and then washes the rest of the aches away in the shower.

(Not that it takes away the pain.  It's right there, ticking beneath his ribs, like a count down.  Two months left, it is saying.  No time at all.)

"You see?"  They are sitting on the couch wrapped in the same blanket, her toes shoved underneath his leg.  Loki does not know how they got there.  He keeps losing track and then being caught by surprise when he turns to find her next to him.  "I told you that it would get better."

"Only because I have such an excellent nurse."  He parrots the line because he knows that he is supposed to play along.  He tries to act like he is grateful even though part of him is wishing that he had sunk into the sea that night with the storm.  It is not fair of him to be bitter over the fact that she had saved him.

"You are okay, aren't you?"  He could see the fear in her eyes, real.  He can see the conclusions that she is drawing, his joke about death and his willingness to drown and the fact that maybe she did taste the blood when she kissed him and now Haven no longer thinks it a joke when he swears that he is not long for this world.  Now she is already seeing him slip away, like sand through the fingers, even though he is standing right there in front of her. 

"Yes."  He frees an arm from under the blankets to wrap around her and tries to feel like it was not a lie.  "I'm going to be okay."

 

 

 

"You see?"  She is on top of him, straddling him, and Loki is terrible, he is horrible, he is weak, because if she knew what he was and what he had done and who he had been she would not want to touch him but he let's her do it anyways, holds her by the waist and throws his head back, a gesture of vulnerability that she does not even notice, but he does, realizes that he trusts this woman with every inch of his life and would gladly let her be the one to kill him, if he were wrong.  He thinks that it would be a sweet death, at her hands.  "We could be happy here."

They could.  He can see it, the two of them, their nights spent at the bar and their days at the beach.  How they would cook breakfast together in the morning and slow dance to her old records on the porch, maybe get a cat or a dog or one of each, and she would never have to go back to work at the diner again, because he would pay for everything.  He would have a story ready when she asked where the money came from and she would believe it because she trusts him with every inch of her, and they would do anything, go anywhere, travel the world or stay right here.  

He could almost trick himself into thinking that it would be possible, if not for the fact that he was running out of time.

 

 

 

They have moved in together.  

Sort of.

More like, Haven's things have shifted over into his house and her clothing is taking up over half of his closet without Loki realizing it was happening and for an entire week she did not go home other than to raid the contents of her fridge, and one night they were sitting across the table from each other and he realized that this was her home, too.  The only thing they had left to do was talk about.

Which they were spectacularly bad at.  

"Hey.  I'm talking to my mother."  She's sitting on the counter, her legs stretched out over the sink and pinching at the herbs spilling over the window sill.   One hand is twisted around the cord and the other is reaching out to tug on his sleeve.  "Do I tell her that we're dating?"

For a moment, he is grateful for Thor, because he would not have understood the question if not for his experience with Jane.  Loki pauses, because he knows that is important and also knows that this is something that he does not have the right to have, that they are moving into the realm of holding hands in public and anniversary dinners and him standing in the grocery store wondering what wine would go best for dinner with the parents.  Saying yes would make it official, as in that she was his girlfriend and he was her boyfriend.

He also knows that he is letting him make the decision without really asking.  He is not sure whether to be grateful or wary.

"Yeah."  He goes back to cutting up the tomatoes that he had gathered from her garden.  "Why not?"

(One month, that thing in his heart whispers.  One month before you die.)

 

 

He pushes the computer towards her and tries not to flinch.

"What's this?"  She has the audacity to look confused.  

"You asked where you knew me from."  Loki was always a masochist so he watches the thoughts fly over her face as she reads over the article, looking from the computer screen to him and back again, as if not sure how the two faces could match.  "This is where."

"I remember this."  It is the first time that he had thought she was stupid.  "This was you?"

He does not want to listen to the end coming.  He does not want to hear her say the things that she must be thinking.  He does not want to watch her leave, and he does not want to be sent away.  He does not even want her to know this, would never have told her, but with the end coming so soon, he wants the comfort of knowing that she would have loved him anyway.  

(And if she couldn't love him, he had figured, at least he had the consolation that he had done right by her.  That he told the truth.)

"I did try to warn you."  There were tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and he told himself it was just because of the mounting pain in his chest.  He presses his thumb down into his ribs just to make it worse and almost screams out from the pain.  "Remember when I told you that I wasn't the hero?"

"You never said that you were a villain."

"I said I was the monster."

"It isn't the same thing."  She bit down on her lip, hard enough to draw blood.  "Monsters are misunderstood."

"Maybe so am I."

"You murdered people because you want to be loved?"

"I murdered people because I was a god."  His hand clenched tight over the edge of the table and it snapped off in his fingers.  She flinches away from him at the sound, and he is ashamed of the splinters that scatter over the floor.  "I thought that mattered."

"And now?"

"And now no one even knows my name."   _And now my people are gone.  My father is dead.  I do not rule over anything.  Now I am laying it all on the line for a girl that will die millions of years before I will, who will fade out of existence like a blink of an eye.  I once told my brother that it was foolishness, to feel something like this.  Now I know it's foolish not to want to at least try._ "It's a matter of perspective, really."

He does not know what that means, but it sounded good.  She does not know what it means either, but she is not running away.

"The whole world was in shambles."  She tilts her head and scrolls farther down the screen.  And then-, "My best friend's father died in that attack.  He was a police man."

Loki didn't have anything to say to that.  He had known that she ran here but he never asked where she was running from.  She had been so reluctant to talk about the things he came before that he kidded himself that he was respecting her privacy, but now he is thinking of a little girl ( _how little would she have been?  He does not know_.  _Time slips, he cannot keep track._ ) standing at the window and watching the monsters roll in, wave after wave.  Maybe the nightmares she has so often are all because of him.

He feels slightly sick.

"Are you really a god?"

A stupid question.  A fair question.  "Yes."  He feels the need to clarify, because he had seen the bible in her living room and knows why she sneaks out of bed every Sunday.  "Not The God.  But a god."

"Can you die?"

He thinks of his father, fading into nothing on a grassy plain.  "Yes."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

"Currently?"

"I'm in the process of it."

She closes her eyes, and when she breathes out it is shaky.  He can see the bruises on her arm from where he had gripped her too tight and feels the shame rise up in him.  Humans are so terribly fragile.  

"I don't want you to die.  Even with this."  She opens her eyes and they are free of tears.  "Does that make me a bad person?"

"I hope not."  He forces out a laugh and it hurts, reaches for her hand and it hurts.  One month.  Less.  If he is not going to die, he is going to be in a world of pain.  "Otherwise there's no hope for me."

"I thought you were a good person."  One tear spills over her eyes and down onto her cheek.  He wipes it away and cradles her face with the palm of his hand.  "That has to count for something, right?"

 

 

 

He keeps expecting her to leave.  She doesn't.  Maybe people are more forgiving than he had thought.  Or maybe there had just been so many other things that his crimes do not matter anymore.

(Though he can still think of a few people who are just dying to punch him in the face.)

 

 

They are stretched out on lawn chairs.  (Correction: lawn chair.  Singular.)

"Do people still pray to you?"

They had been quiet, staring at the night sky, and her question catches him off guard.  The thought makes him laugh, and he twists his neck to look down at her.  "What?"

"I know people used to pray to Thor.  I learned about it."  Her eyes are shining even in the darkness.  "Did they ever pray to you?"

"Once upon a time."  Not so long ago, actually, but he supposes that time is relative.  And strangely enough, once more when the New York invasion happened.  

"Could you hear them?"   _Constantly,_ he wants to say.   _They would scream my name and it was like nails being driven into my head.  They'd whisper their dreams and it would be fingers brushing against my skull, beg for vengeance and I would see red in my dreams.  Sometimes, if they prayed enough, talked loud enough, paid enough, I would see the things they were telling me rise up before my eyes like phantoms- in bed, in battle, during dinner- and I wouldn't know where I started and they began.  Thor reveled in it.  I hated it.  There was so much pain and at the time I could barely handle my own._ "Did you answer them?"

"I tried, at first."  He did.  He'd go down to Midgard and hand out miracles like he was a walking wish machine, mend legs so they could walk and clear lungs so people could breath, make feasts rise from the ground and smite enemies into nothing but ash.  It made him feel better but there were always prayers that went unanswered, and once word got out of what people had done, they poured in even faster, so quick that he could not even pick apart the words and it would be just a roaring in his ears.  He spent entire years of his life in bed, doubled over with a migraine from all the noise, and none of his mother's magic could make the screaming stop.  "There's just too much pain in this world to fix.  Even for a god."

"So you gave up?"

He did not want her to see the worst of him, but he thinks that that ship had already sailed.  "I gave up."

"If I were to pray to you,"  She says, whispering right in his ear.  "Would you hear me?"

"I think that's blasphemy."

"I mean it."  Her hand is traveling up and down his arm, tracing the veins mapping the inside of his wrist, nails scraping on his skin.  It makes him shiver.  It makes him wish for armor.  "If you left me, and I prayed to you, would you hear it?  My words inside your head for the rest of your life?  Because I would.  I wouldn't ever let you forget me."

 _No darling,_ he thinks,  _it would only be for the rest of yours,_ and the idea does not make him feel as powerful as it once did.

 

 

 He is running out of time. 

The ache keeps growing, and he knows that he is running out of time but so is she, because once Thanos is finished with him he will come for earth and it's band of heroes and they will not be able to stand against him, so the defenses will fall and the world will be laid bare and he will rip this world apart, right down the middle, and Loki will not have the ability to save her, will just hold her close as the world as she knows it is stripped away, maybe even hold her as she dies, until she fades into the nothing that Thanos had promised to bring.

Thanos wants the world to be filled with empty spaces.  

The thought makes him hold her even tighter.

 

 

"Do you love me?" She says, and her eyes are wide, her breathing erratic, because he had just told her of what was coming, of the man that had cut away his home and how he might have killed him.  Loki can only stare, because he thought that she would know, somehow, and anyways, how could this help?  "Loki."  She turns his head towards her, and her nails dig into his face.  "I need to hear you say it."

He doesn't, and tells himself that it would be easier for both of them if he didn't.

 

 

 

When the time comes, he slips out of bed even though he had told her that he would stay. 

He folds up his jacket ( _the one that she likes to wear because the sleeves fall down over her fingers and she thinks it looks better on her_ ) and throws it over the back of the chair where she cannot miss it.  He lays the letter on the bedside table and uses some of his much needed strength to shape a rose out of the air.  And then he bends to kiss her, lingering longer than he should, long enough that she might wake up, and he wonders if maybe that was the point.  He never was very brave, and this is not something he wants to face alone.

But he needs to, because it is kinder, to die on his own and fade into nothing without her being near it, even if it leaves her with unanswered questions.  It is better to be abandoned by the ones you love than know that they are gone.  Loki should know  He's been through both.

"I love you,"  He says once more to the empty house, talking to Haven and his mother and his brother and maybe his father, maybe even the house, and then shuts the screen door behind him, careful not to let it slam.  

He goes to the water, because that was where this whole thing started and sits down into the sand, never mind that the waves were coming up to crash over his waist.  It wouldn't matter, soon.  There is no reason to worry about it.

There's no reason to do anything, anymore, even though every instinct in him is screaming to prepare for the battle, to fight back.  There is simply nothing to fight against.

There is only the waiting, and the hopes that the things he had said ( _but you are not a god, the sun shall shine on us again,_ and more recently, whispered to her in the night as she let the tears drip onto his chest  _I will always come home to you if I can_ ) were able to come true.

He would hate to become a liar on top of everything else.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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